To the Editor:
There is a very important and boring issue I wanted to throw out to The Gazette: Fire safety. I don’t know about other faculties on campus, but in the past few weeks fire alarms have been rampant in Taylor library; [last Tuesday] three alarms went off consecutively in the Chemistry Building.

Here is the problem: I don’t know if these are drills, real fires, or alarms being accidentally set off. The more and more these alarms go off, the less seriously students take them. This was evident on Sunday when I vacated Taylor because of an alarm and noticed a large number of students completely ignoring it. I even saw a computer lab completely packed with immobile students who clearly didn’t believe there could possibly be a REAL fire. The thing is, I don’t blame them. If I had assurance the alarm would only be brief, I would have stayed as well.

Our campus is scattered with science labs, chemicals, and all kinds of things that would happily burn us to a crisp. One of these days, inevitably, the fire will be real. When that happens, do we want our students to groan and cover their ears, or make a mad rush for the door? Western, this needs to be addressed.
—Nicholas McRae
Science III